Video: The obligatory Navy “bath salts” PSA

posted at 9:05 pm on January 10, 2013 by Allahpundit

Not the most disturbing PSA I’ve seen (by a longshot) but it’s a minor sensation online and on cable news, so here you go — the best “bad trip” F/X your tax dollars can buy. Before this, I associated bath salts with eating people’s faces off (erroneously). Now I associate them with bowling and dubstep. That doesn’t feel like progress, but there’s one sorta kinda almost decent scare here that’s worth watching for, so maybe I’ve misjudged. Either way, you’ll want to have seen it so that when you get an e-mail from your mom this week with the subject line, “Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: SCARY DRUG VIDEO,” you’ll know right off which one it is. It’s the one that looks like the Syfy Channel’s version of an experimental first-person-POV flick.

Exit question for vets: Is bowling a big thing in the Navy? Seems kind of random here.

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They would, wouldn’t matter, it is just the newest cultural thing, I mean drug testing has been around for years, and service members are still doing the normal drugs, and then they depart back to the culture that evidently is more important to them.

Random in one sense but you’ve got to understand the intended audience the Navy is trying to reach with this video. Young junior enlisted people (too young to drink) probably from a blue collar background. They’ve made it through boot camp and follow-on training and are at their first command. They have more disposible income than they’ve ever had in their lives. And being away from home for the first time they have the most freedom to do what they want and the most opportunity to experiment with drugs. These new substances, like bath salts, are hard to catch by drug testing. But that isn’t to say they are benign.

That being said, I’ll turn film critic for a minute and say that this kind of video won’t really make the difference with the target audience. This is no different than something like “reefer madness.” What they should have done is have interviews with junior enlisted personnel who had bad experiences with bath salts tell their stories. Let some seaman talk about punching his girlfriend at the bowling alley instead of this “dramatic” approach. And let them tell about the consequences of their actions with regard to their Naval careers.

Maybe if the military didn’t randomly drug test soldiers for all the usual, normal drugs, soldiers wouldn’t use sketchy synthetic drugs.

Timin203 on January 10, 2013 at 9:25 PM

Let me get this straight. You’re advocating for the military to leave coke addicts unmolested. So that they can pack that parachute, do that maintenance, or drive that ship without fear of being caught by random drug testing. That about sum it up?

I was an AF guy so I can’t speak for the Navy, but I suspect it’s similar. The piece seems to depict life on base for junior enlisted troops. Since nearly all stateside bases of any size have a bowling alley, it’s just one of the reasonably cheap things you can do on your downtime.

So at least for us AF guys, bowling wasn’t really a “thing”, just something you did from time to time.

If they’re at some overseas location where they be under travel restrictions, if at a training base and haven’t been ‘phased’ up to go off base, if they don’t have much money between paydays, stuff like that, bowling is still a thing In the military.all of my units even had bowling leagues if you can believe it.

Every base I’ve ever been at -except for deployed locations-had a bowling alley.

It used to be a big thing, up to about 20 years ago. Cheap booze and lax ID checking were some of the attractions. Every base used to have bowling alleys. Bowling has fallen out of fashion with the younger military members, coupled with the decline in personnel there isn’t enough support for them except on the largest US bases, although they were still fairly common on overseas bases when I retired in 2004.

Keep in mind military anti drug, alcohol, and tobacco propaganda is as bad as “Reefer Madness”, maybe even worse. A lot of it is pretty inept and modeled on past tense junior high and high school attitudes. The Navy video shown will probably backfire because the producers don’t see it’s true comedic value, and think it is scary. Like I said, inept. When I was a kid we used to get high and laugh along to “Reefer Madness”.

The current “That Guy” campaign is at least a decade past tense, and will probably be around for another decade.

The most effective thing the military has done to prevent drug, alcohol, and tobacco abuse is it is an unintentional side effect of increased physical fitness standards.

The big problem with drug, and alcohol abuse is that using drugs or drinking is done for nothing more than solely getting high or drunk. Instead of going out for a night of bowling, and having a couple drinks, some just go out solely to get drunk.

heh! funny you asked that Allahp. Truth is that you can’t go to any (pick one) Army/Navy/AF installation without there being a friggin’ bowling alley there. You see, when there is some “fad” it finds its way into the military. Well, back in the 1950′s (?) that fad might’ve been bowling. Some jokers in the Pentagon said “Hey, why don’t we put one of them there new fangled bowling alleys on each of our bases?”….and the rest….is history. I think next years defense budget is getting (finally) on board to get to the next fad…….roller skate rinks./

(Reuters) – A nuclear-powered U.S. attack submarine struck a suspected fishing vessel shortly after passing through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf on Thursday, damaging one of the submarine’s periscopes but injuring no one, a Navy official said on the condition of anonymity.

The Navy’s Fifth Fleet said in a statement the vessel appeared unaware of the incident, adding it “continued on a consistent course and speed offering no indication of distress or acknowledgment of a collision.”

The USS Jacksonville, a Los Angeles-class, nuclear-powered submarine, did not appear to suffer further damage, the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said.

“The reactor remains in a safe condition. There was no damage to the propulsion plant systems and there is no concern regarding watertight integrity,” it said.

The incident, which took place at 5 a.m. local time and is under investigation, follows an August collision between a U.S. guided missile destroyer and an oil tanker.

Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if its dispute with the United States over its nuclear program escalates. Washington says it maintains naval forces in the Gulf to ensure security in the region.(More…)
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I remember the big warning at Diego Garcia was not to mess with the donkeys.

The bowling alley, merchant marine bar, and laundromat were the only places you could go on the Footprint of Freedom. Well, once we rented a boat and some tackle from the marina and brought along a few cases of expired Budweiser. We used the left over beer to soothe the raging sunburns.

Last year NavyDad and I remodeled our house and put in an airbath tub (like a Jacuzzi, but gentler). The sales person told me that the wonderful thing about the airbath is that you can use your bath salts in it. Great. They’re expensive at Bath and Body Works, so I thought maybe I could make them myself. Unfortunately googling “bath salts recipe” takes you to bad places.

Reminds me of the time I found a great recipe for mushroom lasagna and then found that shitake mushrooms were $8.99 a pound at my grocery store. Thought it would be a wonderful idea to grow my own mushrooms. Until I looked up how to grow mushrooms and found out how involved it was and couldn’t figure out who would go to so much trouble . . . until it hit me . . .
Drug users ruin everything.

The military has the greatest PSA’s. My favorite was the meth jingle that got stuck in your head and we all ended up singing it for years. And the ever present “If you get drunk you’re going to get raped in a hotel bathroom!”

Exit question for vets: Is bowling a big thing in the Navy? Seems kind of random here.

Funny question. Bowling isn’t “a thing” per se, but the bowling alley is one of those mundane features on a Navy training base. If you’re a young enlisted type with limited travel privileges (getting “phased up” allows young sailors to go off-base), bowling is one of the few options besides staying in the barracks playing video games or staying fit by exercising. The commonplace setting is not random, but it might reflect the dated nature of base facilities. Let’s hope our fleet and equipment are kept up to date better than this.

Damn it, and I just bought a bunch of epsom salts to snort! Now what do I do with them?

NotCoach on January 10, 2013 at 9:28 PM

Why, go soak your head, of course!

Yeah, bowling alleys are on a lot of military bases, particularly overseas. It depends on the year and the base as to how much it gets used. It is a decently benign family activity, especially in places where you don’t speak the language. (And, often, it’s the one place on base where you can buy alcohol besides the official enlisted/NCO/officer’s club – those have diminished greatly over the last few decades due to the anti-drunk crusades.)

I remember the big warning at Diego Garcia was not to mess with the donkeys.

The bowling alley, merchant marine bar, and laundromat were the only places you could go on the Footprint of Freedom. Well, once we rented a boat and some tackle from the marina and brought along a few cases of expired Budweiser. We used the left over beer to soothe the raging sunburns.

Watch CBS’s youtube clip on the salts. It not bath salt at all. Its coke and meth refined and combined into a nasty combination. Even addicts are cringing at the thought. Idiots who will be idiots are snorting this crap and putting themselves in asylums basically. THIS is another reason to be an armed citizen. When one of these nuts busts into your home with superhuman strength, 9-1-1 wont get there in time.

And emptying a .38 into then won’t stop them. They would kill you before dying, due to the drug-strength. A shotgun or a BIG pistol would be the only hope, with rounds to the heart or head.

Anything else – the bath-salt zombies keep coming.

cane_loader on January 11, 2013 at 11:26 AM

Everyone here including the liberal anti-gun trolltards needs to know this, and not just for info on what firearm to buy.

If I could only pick one argument for not acting like the French on illegal drugs, it would be that more than a few of them turn people into something that is literally out of a horror movie…a wild-eyed monster with superhuman strength that you have to blow apart or decapitate in order to stop it before it tears you apart.